Our Inheritance and Integrity — Robert B. Thompson

As we come unto you tonight, with praise and thanksgiving, you're so good, so good, so good, so good, so good. Lord, you are good, and we thank you, Lord, for your goodness to each family represented here.

We thank you especially for Devin, Lord, to hear that he's doing so well, such a miracle. We pray, Lord, that he will just improve rapidly now, Lord. In Jesus' name, help the little fellow. And each family represented here, Lord, bring peace and health and protection.

And, Lord, as we pursue your word, we pray the things you want said will be said, Lord, and add Jesus to each one as he or she has need. And, Lord, let no one go empty, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Little Devin, I heard his throat so bad with this razor scooter.

The thing that really touched me, I have a little sister named Bethany, and she was sitting back there Sunday nights. She started crying, and they couldn't figure out what it was. She said that she's fine coming to church, but she started crying as soon as she got in here.

They asked her what it was, and she said that Devin used to hold her hand during the service. A little eight-year-old boy, and I don't know how old his sister is, but I thought, God's going to hear that.

God will hear that prayer if he doesn't hear anything else. He fell over on a razor scooter and it punctured his trachea. I mean, it was touch and go, but now he's breathing on his own. Who's up there, Tim?

Tim, you don't happen to have that one that shows the six aspects of the inheritance. Do you have that up there? Can you dredge that up? I want to tie that in, because we're leaving that now, passing on to something else.

But I just wanted to tie it together, because I haven't been here at my post for a while. Eddie, praise God, faithful Eddie, filled in for me. So, does anyone in here remember those six aspects of the inheritance while he's finding them?

Oh, you suddenly remembered them? All right, I think we've covered it. I'll move it down now, if you will, so we can see the last ones. Remember what we said about paradise? A couple of things, just two things to remember about it.

Paradise, the New Jerusalem, and the Wall of Holiness

Well, three things. You remember what it means, what the word itself means? Garden. The source of the word is somewhat obscure, but they believe it means garden. And anything else you remember that we said about it?

Paradise? It'll be on the earth. See, when we say heaven, what we mean is paradise. When we think of heaven, we mean paradise, because that's where we were created, on earth, in a garden. And so, heaven merely means a spirit realm.

And we're not after the spirit realm. We're after the garden. We're after the delights of the garden. And we're not just after the spirit realm, per se, because that's full of angels and four-headed creatures and other things we don't know about.

But what we're after is the garden. That's paradise. And so, you remember what we said about it? It will be on the earth. It means garden. It will be on the earth. And there's a third thing that's very important.

It will come from God, through Christ, through the saints. It will not just drop down from heaven. It's being formed in us. What is being formed in us now, that is so utterly important, is the wall. See, Eden had no wall.

Eden was an unwalled paradise. God will have no more unwalled paradises, because it invites the entrance of the enemy. When they were rebuilding under Ezra for a while, there was no wall. Nehemiah started them on the wall, and the enemies, you'll see in the book of Ezra, were able to get right in there.

So, when there's no wall. So, when you see the New Jerusalem, the most conspicuous feature is the wall. We'd love to see what was going on inside there, but what God shows us is the wall, and the twelve foundations with all the precious stones in it.

Because what's important in God's sight is a wall. He doesn't want any more unwalled paradises. And the wall is created in us. We're the foundation of that wall. All these precious stones, with all their colors, represent various virtues that are created in us through heat and pressure.

And that wall will stand for eternity. It will protect the presence of God, and the holiness of the holy city, and the river of life, and all these other things. And there'll be many nations on the earth, saved nations.

But they will not be able to go through the gates into the city. Someone asked me about those gates. So, the gates are always open, that's true. The gates are always open, but there's an angel at each gate.

And the word of God is there in those angels, it says, "...shall not enter into it.". The various things described in the 22nd chapter of Revelation, lying and immorality and all this, will not be permitted, ever, into the paradise of God.

And what will hold it out is Christ in the saints. And that is why we are going through what we're going through. God could take us to heaven, what's the problem with that? You know, we don't have to go through all this to go to heaven.

There's no problem with that. The problem is that God doesn't want a repeat of what happened in the beginning. And so, he is creating a company of people who will rule with Christ. And they will be a wall to keep sin out, away from God's presence.

And on the earth, so that they will teach and correct it. So, God will deal with you and me endlessly about our love for the things of the world, finding security in the world. He will deal with us about the lust of our flesh that is yielding to Satan, the satanic impulses in our flesh, the nature of Satan, the lust, the passions, jealousy, envy, hatred.

And he will deal with us especially about self-will. And our unwillingness to do whatever God says, no matter what. That is the very core of the kingdom, is the doing of the will of God. And in order to, now worldliness is up to us to renounce the world and to turn away from us.

We will ask God for help, just keep me from finding security in the world, in the world system. I don't want to do that. How do we get rid of the sins that are in us, the nature of Satan? Through the power of the Holy Spirit as we confess Him.

If you through the Spirit to put to death the deeds of your body. Now, in this third great realm, which is the source of all other sin, which is an unwillingness to do God's will in every situation. How does God get rid of that?

Faithfulness in the Prison of God’s Will

Being faithful in your prison. And the prison is simply being where you don't want to be, being denied what you want fervently, and being forced to do things year after year after boring year that you don't care to do.

And it's there that we qualify for the crown of life. It says, you'll be in prison ten days, be faithful unto death. It doesn't mean until you die, physically. It means until your will dies. Until you're ready to say, not my will be done.

Gethsemane, that's a death. My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. And until you're willing to do that, and of course the saints of all ages have experienced God's dealings like this, you do not qualify for the crown of life.

That is, the authority to rule, to govern with the power of an endless life. You do not qualify for that until you have been faithful unto death. And it's the cross represents that prison. And that's what God is facing this church with today.

Now, we can overcome the things of the world fairly readily by just being unwilling to occupy our time with the things of the culture. We have many opportunities here to make money, to invent things, to make a start-up company on the internet, and do all kinds of things.

And you see, none of these is sin per se. But, they take our time and strength. And we don't have that to give. It takes all we have to keep up with the program of transformation. And like it says, having food and clothing let us be content.

And see, the American culture is constantly inviting us and showing us how young men, by the time they're 25, they're millionaires because they started up some company on the internet. And we think, well, there's no sin in that, and what I could do with the church for my family, blah, blah, blah.

It's a big lie. Because it takes time, thought, strength, that we don't have to give. We've got to have food and raiment, provide shelter for our loved ones, and that's where it stops. From then on our attention, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

That's a commandment. And that's hard for us. But that's the first great temptation, the temptation of bread. Finding your security in the world. Finding your strength there in the world, your ability to survive, survival and security.

Finding survival and security in the world. Command this stone that it be made bread. Take your talents and make bread. What did Jesus say about that? Man shall not live by bread only. And so, making money invites you to make more money, invites you to make more money, invites you to make more money, and then by the time you're too old to do anything for God, Satan just laughs at you.

You've wasted the one thing that meant something, was your opportunity to use your talent from God. And I'll tell you this, we think of the parable of the talent as being something when the Lord returns, and I'm sure that's true.

But let me tell you something, it operates now. It operates now. God will deal with you for years about using what you have for the kingdom of God, and when he finally sees you're not going to do it, guess what?

He takes it from you, gives it to another, and you go into the darkness of confusion that you don't know where you are spiritually. I'm seeing this happen with people. The Bible means just what it says.

And we have to take our God-given help, what understanding we have, what gifts we have of the Spirit, what opportunities we have, and we use them today, we don't say later. Because let me tell you something, later never comes.

Never comes. I know one man that when we were over in the old church, he wanted to serve God, he said, when I sell my business, I'm going to serve God. I'm going to sell my business, I'm going to serve God.

This has got to be 20 years ago. I saw him about a year ago. Guess what? What he said to me, he'd moved to another place, he says, I'm going to sell my business. When I get that business sold, I'm going to serve God.

20 years wasted doing what? Amassing paper. Money. You go into his casket without it, and you come up on the day of resurrection and face a frowning Christ. You wasted what I gave you. So, God doesn't want that for us.

He wants us to be free from the American way of death. And that's what it is, it's the American way of death. He wants us free from that. He wants us having food and clothing to be content. Not to be tempted into making more money and making more money.

And God will lead us if we ask him. I'm not being impractical, I'm being immensely practical. We've seen enough people in nursing homes to see what we all come to. Sooner or later. Incontinent. You know, not able to do anything for anybody, just having to be waited on.

And so the time for us to serve God and others is now. It doesn't come later. It's now. And there's not time to dabble in the American economic system. There's not time for that. It's not, as I said, inherently sinful.

It's like Jesus said, they were marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling. See, there's no inherent sin in that, until the flood came and took them all away. See, he didn't say they were committing adultery and sodomy and stealing and lying.

He said they were marrying and giving in marriage, buying and selling. Sure. They didn't know because it blinds you. Because it blinds you. It's called in the Bible the deceitfulness of riches. It deceives you.

And you think everything's going fine, and what you don't realize is this is fritting away, and you'll stand before God and say, why didn't you tell me this is what I'm doing? And God said, I told you in the Word.

You don't need a telegram. I told you in the Word. This is it. Do it. And so, as we read the Bible and we see our faces dirty, then what do we do? We pray. We wash it by the Word. We pray and ask God to save us from the world.

And the lust of the flesh, the same thing. We just have to put it when God reveals it. We confess it. Renounce it. Denounce it. Draw near to God, and the Holy Spirit breaks that yoke in our life. It's an ongoing process.

Transformation Into a Life-Giving Spirit

Boy, it doesn't happen, you know, every Sunday morning at 11 o 'clock. It's a 24-hour a day, 7-day a week, all your life, to transform an Adamic nature to a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15 .45.

The first Adam was made a living soul. The second Adam is made a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15 .45. And in order for that transformation to take place, you have to not neglect your salvation. Remember Hebrews 2 .3?

How shall we escape? It's not written to the unsaved. It's written to the saints. Hebrew saints. How shall we escape? We saints. If we neglect. Neglect. Because that second chapter goes on and tells us that we are rulers of all the works of God's hands.

And they were neglecting it. They had been saved and filled with the Spirit. Now they were dwelling in their paneled houses. That's so easy to do. You know, we come so far, maybe we're in a church that's on the growing edge, and we come so far, and we get saved, we get filled with the Spirit, maybe something else in that church, and pretty soon the whole church has kind of found its level, and it quiets down, and from then on it just kind of, I don't know what, it quits growing.

It loses the verb, like he says in Ephesians, you've left your first love. That's so easy to do. We're not there yet. God has more for us. He's challenging us now with going to the nations. That was the word of God Sunday.

And every one of us have got to turn back to God now and say, Lord, do you have a ministry for me? And I would suggest ask God for a nation. See what he'll do. He'll guide you. There may be people right here in this room that God has in mind to send to Red China or to Tibet or to Yemen or to some place you'd never think.

But let me tell you, it will never just happen. The only reason, and I'm standing before you right now and not working as a superintendent of public instruction, the only reason is because all the while that I was in the public school, I was praying, praying, seeking God's face, praying, getting up early in the morning, praying, going to church early on Sunday, way before the Sunday school started, praying, praying, praying, praying, praying, never quitting.

That's why I'm here. If I hadn't have done that and just said OK and just taught the Sunday school, come in at 9 .30 and start the Sunday school at quarter ten, I wouldn't be here. I got there at six from my class at quarter ten.

Six. When I was a school principal. It's a demanding job. It doesn't just happen. The Lord doesn't come in knocking on your bedroom window and saying hey, I've called you to Brazil. You have to pray. There's one thing about God, He doesn't like to use people that He has to drag them and explain it to them and listen to their belly aching and everything.

He'll look around to find somebody that's ready to go. Not over-anxious, not rushing out in enthusiasm, but a polished tool. Kept polished, kept oil, kept in the place where it's supposed to be so the Lord doesn't have to wrench the social milieu to get them to move.

Let me tell you, it's easy to serve God when you're being used. It's easy to pray, read your Bible, keep bread out for Jesus. It's not that easy when you're not being used. When year after year goes by and you're busy in secular work and you're not being used, it is very difficult to pray like you're the greatest apostle on earth and not be used.

And I went through that for years, years. It's easy when you're in the grand parade, all excited. But boy, the years of boring, waiting, warring and waiting, figuring you'll be dead and that'll be it.

And still, get up and push the envelope, pray, seeking God, faith, service, dedication, discipline. And you can't slack off. There's no slacking off. I remember one famous piano player said, when I go one day without practicing, I know it.

I know it. When I go two days, my disciples know it. When I go three days without practicing, the audience knows it. You're going to be a master pianist. You're with it all the time. Or a master ice skater.

You're with it all the time. Or swimmer, or whatever it may be. And if you want to be transformed from the Adamic nature to a life-giving spirit, start now. And don't quit. And don't say, I'm too old.

If you're breathing, you're not too old. And you're not too young. God wants you to... And I say, be good. I'll probably be pushing this Sunday. I don't know whether I will or not. But I may. It's much on my heart.

We're at a place now where we need... We've got... Like he said... Dennis said, we've got men trained in the house. People trained in the house. And... Those people trained in the house need to be before God.

Even though your actual ministry may be 15 years from now. You start now. You say, God, I'm ready. Just give the word. Audrey and I lived like that for years. You give the word, Lord. We're ready to go.

We're not married to the world. We're ready to go. And when the Lord spoke, we went. And lost a lot of money from the California State Teachers Retirement System. A lot of money. All the matching funds.

When God said go, this little church over there got down to one member and the fourth square closed it. We had no idea this was going on. But God said go. We came at just the right time because there was older ministers that wanted to use that little church for a retirement church.

And there was pressure on the local superintendent to give in to them. Let them have it. He said, I want that church to go. So we never went anywhere. And so he heard us come into town. Walter Miller told them I was a Bible teacher.

He came to us. And we'd never been... I'd never been in a four square church in my life. I don't think you had either, had you, Audrey? Right. But we'd never been in a four square church. Never. And he came and said, will you pastor this church?

And if we hadn't have come right when God said... I know a man in the Assemblies of God. One year before retirement, the Lord told him to leave and go minister. And wouldn't there be a temptation to say to the Lord, just let me wait a year and then I won't have to trust other people for support?

See? That's the way God does. When God says go, he doesn't mean, well, let's think about it. Now let's talk about it and argue about it. And I'll explain all my reasons to you and everything else. He doesn't want to do that.

When he says go, he means go. But you don't go when he doesn't tell you to go. You don't go charging off in your zeal. So what's the answer? Prayer. You pray. You tell the Lord, I'm ready to go. I'm a man trained in the house, a person trained in the house.

I'm ready to go. Where's that nation, Lord? Where's that group of people that you're going to give me? Where are they? And he'll tell you what that will do. That will lift you up from the petty squabbles of life.

You won't be worrying anymore about friction with people. You won't be worrying about the rising cost of power. You won't be worried about the election. You won't be worried about anything else because you'll be lifted up because you're praying to God to use.

You realize all this other stuff is just riffles. It doesn't mean anything. God will lift you above this. You begin to pray for the nation. You begin to pray for other countries. Get involved in this.

All this other stuff that goes on is in the paper. They're all like yo-yos. Newspapers are like a yo-yo. It's up and down, up and down. They have to have something to sell papers. And what does the average Christian do?

Goes up and down with paper. Oh, it's going to be a horse race. Gordon Bush doesn't mean a thing. God will put in who he wants and his will will be done. Bible says promotion comes neither from the east nor from the west.

God sets up one, puts down another. I'm not telling you not to vote. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. God will have his way. Get your mind on what's important. Get your mind on what's important.

The kingdom of God. Christ and fruit for his table. God's got out there people that's fruit for his table. And he'll show you if you'll show any interest in the situation. Amen. And Dennis is right on the money.

Right on the money. We've had, I think, fairly good teaching here. And there's a lot of people who've never heard it and don't even dream it exists. And they might be for you. And I've told you, I guess, for a decade or more, the only inheritance worth having is people.

And you might pick yourself up a couple hundred people. Bring them into eternity. You know what Paul said? What is my joy in rejoicing in the day of the Lord? Isn't it you? Tony might pick himself up a few Greeks.

On the other hand, he might send Tony to Turkey. Just to be sure that the flesh doesn't glory. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Tony the Greek in Turkey. That would be a knockout. That would take the power of God.

For sure. But it would be something if you reconcile those two nations, wouldn't it? It would be something. It would be something. And you know, we don't know it, but there are a lot of born-again Arab Christians.

We just don't hear about them. But there's a lot of them. And there's Christians, there's Jewish Christians and Arab Christians praying together. You never see that in the paper. See, you don't see the really important stuff unless you get praying and get involved.

You're just living on this fleshly, shallow stuff that goes on in our culture. You're getting to see where God's really doing things with people. Unless you're willing to pray and say, Lord, here am I, send me.

Some of us, I think, are pretty close to God saying, okay, you're right. Let's do it. But you have to wait because you're being drawn on the Lord's bow. He moves it up toward the enemy like this. He draws.

He draws. Boy, you feel like you're going to crack. Let this thing go. Don't worry. His timing is perfect. And when he's ready for you, with Audrey and me, I was 50 when God finally said, go. 50 years old.

What a time to start. So, stay there until he lets the arrow fly to go straight into the heart of the king's enemies. See, I'm getting old. Oh, big deal. Jesus ministered for three years and changed the history of the world and never left a little area around Jerusalem.

No, don't worry about it.

You're too old. Maybe you're old enough not to have manners. Tony? Pastor, you teach that we're in the church age right now and a thousand years into the kingdom age. And you also teach that the kingdom, the church age is the time of preparation of the body of Christ.

The Church Age, the Kingdom Age, and the Elect

Now, in that church age that we're in right now, the preparation of the body of Christ, does that include going on to the nations and we've heard from Dennis and you've preached that. But what there remains, what are we supposed to live in the, what will be the thrust in the millennium or the kingdom age?

The thrust in that age will be the nation per se. The entire nation that is left alive. What we're going out now for is to find the elect. If you'll read in the book of Acts, you'll see at least three references to the fact that they were not going out to save Corinth.

They were not going out to save Ephesus. You'll find that the Lord directed them where to go and where not to go. And you remember, I think it was either Corinth or Thessalonica, the Lord said to him, stay here, I have many people in this city.

He didn't say stay here and save the city. He said, I have many people. In another place he says in Acts, as many as were ordained, the life believed. So you see, that's what I meant by food for the master's table.

Out there in the nations, he has members of his elect, people that he's called, that have been called from the foundation of the world to be sons of God. Members of the church. And when you go out there, the Spirit of the Lord will lead you to the elect, to the people that God has elected.

But when you get into the kingdom age, you get into the whole nation. Now, you see, in the Great Commission, it says, go and make disciples of the nations. But it doesn't mean the whole nation, because you won't see that in the book of Acts.

They never disciple the whole nation. It means you make disciples out from the nations. You go into Greece, you make up some disciples. You go into Turkey, you make some disciples. You go into Arabia, you make some disciples.

See, that's where the elect, that's where the Spirit of God has to lead you. They tried to go into a couple of places, the apostles did, and the Spirit didn't let them. And you'll find this, if you read this carefully in the book of Acts, you'll see what was done was the calling out of the church, out from the nations.

Yes?

Okay, so for that matter, okay, now I understand it. It makes sense. So for that matter, let's take the jail ministry, for example. Would that be considered a nation going into the jails and trying to pick out a dozen of them, like you said,.

Out of the, or to whosoever will. Would that be considered a nation? Yes, because the word nation, as it's used in the New Testament, does not mean a nation like we have today. They didn't exist at that time.

There was only the Roman Empire. There were no nations. And when he said, go into every nation, it has to do with the meaning of the Greek word. And it means people with a common, commonality. It could be a hundred people with a headman, with a chief.

It could be a hundred people. See, when we think of a nation, we think of the nations as they are today. They didn't exist then. And so I would say, yes, a jail would be a nation in that sense. It's a homogeneous group of people.

The nations did not exist. There was only the great Roman Empire. There were no nations. So it's any group of people that the Lord calls you to. You go out there and you minister to them. And by the Lord, the Lord will tell you where to go.

The Lord, boy, we've heard some interesting stories about this. There was one old lady, the Lord called her to Africa. She didn't realize she was going to get there. She went down to the train station and somebody handed her a ticket.

An old lady. She went there and got in Africa and sat down under a tree and got out her Bible and started teaching. Pretty soon the kids come around. She had herself a Sunday school, just following the Spirit of the Lord.

Oh, there are many instances of this kind of thing happening in church history. You do what the Lord tells you. Andrew had a... Andrew, do you want to tell about that experience that you had about the three boys on the bench?

That's the real stuff, Andrew.

Say it so they can hear you on the tape. It was a Friday night that the women's retreat started. And I was going up to Bill Holland's house. I had to... They had a problem with me. I was late getting there.

So I left. That was the only time I was supposed to be up in Vista. And I thought that the 125 that goes into Stanton connects to the 52. I thought that was finished. I didn't know. So I took off to go into it.

It wasn't. So it shot me on onto Fletcher Parkway. And then I was going to make a U-turn but I couldn't because there were so many cars coming around the corner. So I thought I'd make a left turn and go up to the next light and make a U-turn and come back.

When I got to the next light the Lord said, This is not a mistake. Turn left. He'll make a U-turn. I'll show you where to go. So... Okay. This is a little strange. This has happened before but it hasn't been a while.

It's been a couple of years. So I turned left. And I said, Well, I'll know in a few minutes that this is some wacky thing. It's not the Lord. Because it would go away. And it did. And I got blocked down.

And I said, Turn into Circle K. So I turned into Circle K. And when I turned in I saw three young guys about 14 years old somewhere in there 12 and 15 sitting on a bench. And the Lord said, Go talk to them.

And when you get up to them and sit down I'll give you the words to say. So I kind of sat there and it was strange. Then I thought to myself, If there's a war going on in me that means that somebody doesn't want me to go talk to them.

So this has to be the Lord. So I got out. Isaiah was with me. I locked him in the car. There's a large window. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And he just sat there and looked around. He didn't have a problem.

So then I walked up to him and sat down. And I said, Whatever's going on in my life I have a message for you from Jesus. And they just looked at me like, Who's this guy? And I said, I can't remember what I even said to him.

I said, I said, Don't waste your time. I said, You're young and you have your whole life ahead and you don't waste your time. And I asked him, I said, Do you guys know who Jesus is? He said, Oh yeah, we go to the Lutheran church up on the hill.

I said, You're young. God is calling young people out for his army to do his will on the earth. I said, He's looking for you. Don't waste your time. He died on the cross for you. Don't waste your time.

And that was it. I walked away. And I looked around and I got the mic. Now tell me, would you have done that? See, obviously you can go into error in this kind of thing if you're not careful. But it's a day.

When we need to be alert. You know, if something like that comes to you, pray carefully. Say, Lord, if this is you, direct me. If not, get me out of here. You know, you have to be prayerful. You can't be foolish.

But, oh, this kind of thing. Boy, you read the history of Pentecost. This is, you know, people were going over to countries and speaking in the languages that they'd never learned. And see, there's been a dry time.

And I think it's so that God did not want to bless the order as it was then. He wanted people to go on to further work in sanctification so that when he blessed them and used them, they wouldn't repeat the old errors of making money from the ministry and seeking preeminence and all the corruption that went on.

Yes, Emily. I can tell you a quick story how I got to your church. This was back in 1979. My husband was invited by another gentleman, you know, the same one Barbara Duncan that used to be here, to a teaching, a scripture teaching out on Waring Road, which is way east on Highway 8.

And Barbara called me up and said, Emily, why don't we go with the fellas and we'll have dinner? I said, fine. Got there, Paul Dillinger was teaching. Of course, I didn't know any of these people at all.

And while I was sitting listening to Paul, the Lord said to me, very simply, I want you to ask that man where he goes to church because I want you to go to church soon. So I went up to Paul afterwards and I said, Paul, where do you go to church?

And he said, oh, it's a little tiny church out on the highway. And I said, would you give me the address? And he said, well, where do you live? And I said, I live in La Jolla. And he said, oh, you're a long way from the church.

I said, that's okay, give me the address. That was in 1979. I came out at that time.

And I've been here ever since. Now, you can expect things like that. And the Christian life, when it comes to ministry, is a romance. I mean, it's an adventure. I think it was Amy Carmichael walking on the water at midnight.